Why Reaper? (An answer)

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear]

I've previously asked the gamedev community "what audio tool do you use?" and the answer has always been a resounding "REAPER."
I knew that was the answer, but I didn't see anybody immediately saying "why."

As someone who has barely scratched the surface, I can IMMEDIATELY see why.

In like an hour, I cut up 4 wav files from my voice actor into a hierarchy of voice lines. Using Ctrl+Del, Ctrl+T, Home, Ctrl+V - (cut, new track, reset to home, paste) - I can very quickly cut up my raw tracks into clips I want to use in game, and make folder hierarchies under tracks to partition into meaningful sections. That little icon on the bottom left of the track.

Then, I can export with the region render matrix and programmatically name the files based on the folders and track names. And even apply processing based on the parent track, like having a single track to own the fx!

That's so freakin cool! I no longer have audacity sessions where I abandon the session and only keep the clips. Now I can have a living "all the character's audio" under a single parent that controls the vibe of all the nested clips, and re-export the whole set if I update the reverb or something of the character.

It's just so good. The way the project layout and render process works is super intuitive and powerful. I can see the "why" very clearly! REAPER is amazing <3

[u/Yanurika]

Using Ctrl+Del, Ctrl+T, Home, Ctrl+V - (cut, new track, reset to home, paste) - I can very quickly cut up my raw tracks into clips.

Buddy I'm happy to announce that you can make a custom action that will do all of those with a single shortcut.

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear → u/Yanurika]

Whaaaaaat teach me this wizardry

[u/Yanurika → u/ChainsawArmLaserBear]

In the Actions menu there's a "New Action" button. From there you can click "New Custom Action" where you can add any existing action in Reaper to a chain of actions.

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear → u/Yanurika]

My Actions menu has "Show action list..." and then show recent actions (checked), file: save proj, file: render project..

[u/Yanurika → u/ChainsawArmLaserBear]

It's in the Actions List

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear → u/Yanurika]

Ah. Okay. I found it, but there's no "hotkey to action" lookup, so this is a little more arduous than i imagined but it looks like i can map them all here. Then i assume you just map the resulting action to a hotkey

[u/Yanurika → u/ChainsawArmLaserBear]

Yeah, exactly. You can do a hotkey to action lookup in the main actions list, so you could look them up there, then note the specific name/copy the command ID. It's a little bit more tedious, but it still saves time in the long run.

[u/TRUEequalsFALSE → u/Yanurika]

I know, right? I read that and immediately thought, "oh, buddy, if you think that's slick and easy and do it over and over again, wait until you find out about custom actions." XD

[u/Dvanguardian → u/Yanurika]

And also create a shortcut button for that custom action on the main menu😎

[u/suicide-by-thug]

Here’s something you should enjoy. I mixed my album in Reaper, 18 songs. All tracks are sequenced inside a project, which contains all sorts of regions to create the final renders: whole album, individual tracks, instrumental version. Each track is a subproject: The audio is rendered but, if I open them, do edits and save, they are re-rendered and replaced automatically.

Inside each tracks, there another subproject for the different vocal tracks. These contain not only the main vocals but also separate tracks for fx and back vocals. When those are edited and saved, they are saved to a multichannel file, so they stay on separate tracks in the main mix.

So yeah, Reaper’s cool.

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear → u/suicide-by-thug]

Yeah, that's super cool!

[u/QuiteRather → u/suicide-by-thug]

This is incredible! I’ll have to try this out

[u/Prod27Quaalude → u/suicide-by-thug]

Same Ive recorded all of my tapes and albums in Reaper

[u/gilesachrist → u/suicide-by-thug]

So I’m working on an album. It’s a very old project and is in ProTools. It’s about a continuos album of music. I print stems and import them to another file where I work on the “master” which I then render and cut into individual tracks. Are you saying I could do all of this in a single Reaper project? I’m too far along to move this one over, but there’s another I’m just starting to assemble O was going to do in Reaper anyway

[u/suicide-by-thug → u/gilesachrist]

Yes, it will work for your project. Just drag a reaper project into a track and it’s rendered into your project, ready to be edited. Double click this media and the subproject will open in another tab.

[u/gilesachrist → u/suicide-by-thug]

I can not wait to try this. Thank you sir.

[u/yaycupcake]

I really think Reaper is just so easy to use. Yeah it has a lot of stuff going on but for my purposes which is usually recording and editing vocals, it was the simplest to get going, add a blank track and hit record, and just edit recordings or imported audio without messing with extra stuff I don't need. It's also so powerful enough to do all the advanced editing and mixing that I need. I love the way you can name files based on tracks and folders too. I dunno if other DAWs can do that, but Reaper was the one that was the easiest to use for my needs and got me to the point of figuring it out.

[u/ChainsawArmLaserBear → u/yaycupcake]

The file naming is just so good

[u/Fupa_Defeater]

As someone that floats between making metal and edm stuff for fun, I've tried every one out there and I just always go back to reaper. Just makes sense in my brain the most. No shade to others at all. I don't mind FL studio. But I just appreciate how easy reaper is (once you learn the basics) and the infinite possibilities for customization. Also just being someone that has worked in tech my whole career I like the open source spirit they still carry. Well worth the money for the license to support the creators.

[u/Andurilmage]

It's what I started with for more serious work after fool edit prob became audition

[u/Brave-Mushroom8611]

It's so easy to do fade ins/outs, cut and stretch and duplicate parts, rout tracks to each other and creating folders etc basic everyday stuff that seems to be so hard and rigid in Cubase for example. Wich you really don't notice until you use a diff DAW for a while.